SDC Families Worried for Center's Future

The Kenwood Press has published an article by PHA President Kathleen Miller. In it Kathleen voices the concerns of Sonoma Developmental Center families and advocates for the continuation of the essential services provided by SDC -- and for the future of its residents.  We've reposted the article here in its entirety. You can also find it online in The Kenwood Press at Developmental Center families are worried.

Sonoma Developmental Center families and friends are worried. We listened to the task force on the future of developmental center hearings. We hear the ongoing diatribe against developmental centers. We hear the call for closure. We hear the need to save the state money. Also, we know our own histories.

We know that there are stories of former Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC) residents who have been successful in alternative placements. We celebrate when they are successful. We love nothing better than to hear about former SDC residents flourishing in alternative placements after being stabilized by SDC services. On the other hand, we also hear stories from those who are not doing well. Many of us have our own such stories, stories of our family members who were ejected from their community placements because they were too ill or too difficult to handle.

Pat Walters is a microbiologist whose work is critical to the lives of many who rely on the accuracy of her work. She has read the regulations for the homes that are proposed for individuals who are medically fragile and she is clearly aware of what those homes have to offer. She is not convinced that her daughter would even survive the transition if she were forced to move from SDC into such a home. Her daughter has a severe seizure disorder and a number of other serious complex medical conditions; she is not easy. Even so, she loves to be in the thick of things and lives to be surrounded by people and activity. She has done well at Sonoma Developmental Center. Walter’s fears are not just doubts, but are based on her knowledge of the risks and her daughter’s unique needs. She knows a move of any kind presents risks to her daughter. Moving to a home where the staff is unfamiliar with her daughter and with medical staff only available once every 60 days is not enough to provide the life sustaining support her daughter needs.

Private vendors are eager to get the SDC’s medically fragile individuals into their homes; they say that alternative private homes can care for these very special need residents. However, when things go wrong in these homes, these residents can end up either dead or in skilled nursing homes, facilities not created to deal with these special patients.

Skilled nursing homes were created for those who are old, ill and dying; they do not have the day programs necessary to provide stimulation and activities needed by SDC residents. Residents of SDC are used to a programmed daily schedule for their development and health maintenance. Skilled nursing facilities may not even represent any cost savings to the state; ironically, they do not even fit into the ideology that includes the thinking that all developmentally disabled individuals belong in community housing living among non-disabled people. Please note that close to 1,000 regional center clients live in skilled nursing facilities.

The situation for behaviorally challenging residents of SDC bodes even worse. During the recent task force deliberations, I was contacted by the sister of a young man we will call “John.” John is a client of a northern California regional center who is developmentally delayed and also has mental illness. He had already been ejected from a number of community homes when his sister contacted me. John reminds me of my own son and many of the current residents of SDC who are among the behaviorally challenging residents that have a dual diagnosis of developmental disability and mental illness.

The regional center was unable to place John in SDC because of a moratorium on placement into any of the state’s developmental centers, including Sonoma. If he had been allowed access to SDC, he could have spent time there getting stabilized, and stayed until he was ready to return to an alternative placement with a chance at success. Instead he was sent to a 15-bed delayed egress facility in Yuba City.

Delayed-egress facilities are not considered locked. They have doors that lock for a time when tried and then unlock. Residents in such facilities who are cognitively unable or too mentally ill to deal with such a delay, experience it as a locked facility. (SDC is considered most restrictive because it has locked doors for a few residents part of the day.) Unfortunately, residents of this delayed-egress facility are there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Recently, John got into an altercation with another resident and so was sent downstairs into a locked psychiatric facility. In that facility he not only was locked in, but he was denied access to people and resources in the outside world, including access to his sister. In that facility, he mixed with those in the general community of the mentally ill and he was subjected to a mix of medical restraints. Subsequent to that, he has been sent to yet another acute psychiatric facility in southern California even further away from his home and support system.

I wish I could tell you his situation is unique, but in 2012, 850 regional center clients went to general acute psychiatric facilities and 221 went to jail. I also wish I could explain that such measures at least save taxpayer dollars. No such luck! The facility in southern California costs half a million dollars a year and that does not include the cost of regional center staff desperately trying to find him any location that will take him in, the cost of transport, and numerous other costs.

The real cost however, is the human cost. John has been repeatedly ripped from his home, his family and all that is familiar right when he needs them the most. He has been subjected to many different medical restraints and no doubt physical restraints. Now when he acts out as a result of his mental illness or as a result of his terror at losing all that is familiar and safe, the response has been more restraints.

Developmental center families are being told not to worry. We are being told that alternative placements can handle our loved ones without problems. They do it every day. But Sonoma families are still very worried.

So, what can we do? We have formed an alliance with the local Sonoma community, a community that has welcomed the Sonoma residents for decades. We support their goals of creating needed open space and watershed on the open space of SDC land and they support our goals of creating services for the most vulnerable of California’s citizens. With them we are hoping to create something new and special for the vulnerable populations that live at SDC. This vision includes support from both the surrounding community and those of us who rely on SDC services. We are hoping to take the recommendations of the task force on the future of the developmental centers and implement them in ways that will not only protect the current residents of SDC but those who will have similar needs in the future.

Sonoma families are worried. However, we have an important resource that other families with family members living in closing developmental centers have not had. We have the Sonoma community.